What's Rational About That? Day 4

Objective: SWBAT identify and order rational and irrational numbers on a number line.

Big Idea:
Often times, students need several exposures to material before it begins to sink in. Today, we will play an online sorting game in teams to provide that needed practice identifying rational and irrational numbers before manipulating them mathematically.

On today's Warm Up.pdf, students must put rational and irrational numbers on a number line. They must then circle all the rational numbers. Although most of the numbers will be fairly easy for the students to order, I predict they will struggle with the -1/8 as it is both negative and a fraction. While students are working on the warm up assignment, I will wander the classroom in search of a student who does not struggle with the placement of the -1/8 and ask him/her to share their thinking with the class once the timer sounds.

Resources

I found this online game to provide additional sorting practice for students. It works well on the interactive white board. Students have 3 minutes to sort numbers by dragging them into correct bins labeled rational and irrational. They get 10 points for each correct answer, but they lose 10 points if they are incorrect. To involve all learners, I split the class into two teams and then randomly select a student (from name sticks) to play.

The selected student pushes play and begins to sort with help from his/her teammates. When time is up, a final score is shown, which I record on a dry erase board. I continue drawing "volunteers" until 4 students from each team have played. I then total the scores and the team with the best score wins.

While the game is going on, I simply facilitate the progress without intervening with struggling students. I do encourage teammates to be supportive, however, and make mental note of numbers with which students consistently struggle. At the end of the game, I bring those numbers up for brief discussion to clarify any misconceptions.

For today's Wrap-Up, students will order 5 given numbers on a number line for their Ticket Out the Door. I intentionally chose numbers that would be somewhat challenging for students including radical 15, pi, 3.18..., 3.25, 3.12 repeating, and 3.87... Students will likely struggle with the square root of 15 and seek the help of special education students who have calculators to assist them in finding its value for placement on the number line.